Author Archives: James Ernest

Claiming innocence (Psalm 69)

Really, Psalmist? Again? More tears, more moaning, more self-pity? More in number than the hairs of your head? So you have counted them? Either the hairs or the enemies? Good lord, if you had a violin in addition to that harp somebody in your own house would have to shoot you. Are you sure aboutContinue reading “Claiming innocence (Psalm 69)”

How to get people to do good things: coerce, persuade—or agree

Better to find allies and change the culture than sell your soul in an effort to control others’ behavior

One Ring to Bind Them All: Conservative Christians and the Theocratic Impulse

For conservative White Christians in the USA, theocracy is the Ring of Power, and abortion is their reason for wanting to use it. But it has its own purposes.

All day long (Romans 10:21)

“ALL DAY LONG I HAVE HELD OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND OBSTINATE PEOPLE.” —Romans 10:21, citing Isaiah 65:2 How to feel about the recalcitrant? (Here is just another lesson in the long course in imitatio Dei that is the Christian life.) They just don’t get it. Are they incapable of understanding? Do theyContinue reading “All day long (Romans 10:21)”

The choice we make (Psalm 1)

Psalm 1 is about two kinds of people: wicked and righteous. The point is not polarization (setting up an Us versus a Them, two fixed and opposed groups) but moral choice: the whole point is that we can, we inevitably do, decide which type to be, and we are being urged to be one wayContinue reading “The choice we make (Psalm 1)”

Living between divine love and human iniquity (Psalm 36)

Abiding in God’s love does not make us pious dopes who think (or pretend) that everything is always wonderful. It enables us to see evil clearly, call it what it is, and understand that in the end it is powerless before the power of Love.